It's Not That Big a Deal

No, Voting Third Party Isn’t a Waste

Given the historically unpopular candidates presented to us, 2016 should be the year Americans are encouraged to expand our political horizons.

Instead, people interested in a non-binary choice this election face a litany of derisions and insistences that their political preferences should take a back seat to a greater mission of ensuring that either Clinton or Trump not take the White House.

Underneath it all is the accusation—outright or implied—that voting for a third party candidate is a waste of time: a selfish, brazen gesture best left for a less pivotal year.

This is a terrible argument. There’s no such thing as wasting your vote if you’re doing what you want with it: it’s yours! Vote for candidate A, B, or C; don’t vote; write in your uncle’s name. It doesn’t matter. The only real way to waste your vote is to let someone else tell you how to use it.

Once you’ve been dutifully informed by some clairvoyant pundit that you’re wasting your vote by using it the way you want to, the dismissal of third party candidates based on their remote chances of victory is never far behind. This is profoundly confused; a vote isn’t a bet. There’s no prize for picking the candidate that ends up winning.

The point of a representative democracy–other than to elect leaders–is to convey national preferences to politicians (does anyone believe Ralph Nader’s relative success as a Green Party candidate had no impact on the Democrats’ current environmental stances?). The best way to do this is for everyone to vote for candidates and ideas that appeal to them. The worst thing voters can do is reward unresponsive parties with loyalty: that only begets more unresponsiveness.

Increased interest in third parties let’s Democrats and Republicans know they’re off track. In that sense, and especially to anyone interested in the integrity and evolution of our political discourse, third parties have an important role as the barometers of American political attitudes, if not yet heavyweight contenders for the presidency.

Remember: only a very small minority of our country has actually voted for Clinton or Trump at this point! There’s no reason for the rest of us, who have actively or passively declared our disinterest in both, to feel pressured to line up behind either of them. Some will, and that’s fine if it’s what they want at the end of the day; in fact, I’m happy they’ve found something they can believe in. But it’s not unreasonable for the rest of us to pursue options that we find more personally appealing.

Pluralism and diversity are, at least ostensibly, integral to the American political experience. I can think of nothing worse for our nation than a fear-driven dichotomy whereby we are encouraged to re-imagine second worst as synonymous with best. If we want to be happy with the results of our electoral process, we should start by being more honest about what we want from politicians. The best way to do that is in the voting booth.